The Kirkpatrick Family

Edna Claire Kirkpatrick Mott.

My mother's family was always into family history and no branch was more talked about than that of the Kirkpatricks.

My grandmother was Edna Claire Kirkpatrick, and her father was Louis Dillard Kirkpatrick (1873-1951). I knew my grandmother well - indeed, when I was a child she lived with us until her death in 1973. I did not know my great-grandfather Kirkpatrick except through family stories - which in many ways made him more real than many of my living relatives.

The Kirkpatrick line (of Sumner County and Wilson County in Tennessee) was far and away the best documented part of my family. I own the family bible of my great-great-great-grandfather, Anderson Kirkpatrick (1805-1887). It includes information back to his father, John Kirkpatrick (1770-1808). From that point on the family is well documented with various letters, slips of paper, and many photographs from the late 1800s on. One of the most interesting things is the small stash of Civil War letters. The family had been in Tennessee for several generations - thus the Kirkpatricks were with the Confederacy.

I'd had a mild interest in genealogy since I was a kid and had become the self-appointed family historian, but a much deeper interest in genealogy kicked in after my mom died in 2004. I think I was looking for a way to strengthen my connections to the past, as the present felt so fragile.

Anderson Kirkpatrick and Emmaliza Moss Kirkpatrick.

I quickly found several long-lost Kirkpatrick cousins, and with the internet I was able to push the Kirkpatrick family line back several generations beyond my great-great-great-grandparents, Anderson Kirkpatrick (1808-1887) and Emmaliza Moss Kirkpatrick (1812-1874), seen in the photo at right.

My oldest verifiable Kirkpatrick ancestor at this point is Alexander Kirkpatrick, born 1650 in Watties Neach, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. His son, also an Alexander Kirkpatrick (1685-1758), moved from Scotland to Belfast, Ireland, around 1725 and in 1736 he immigrated to America. He arrived in New Castle, Delaware, but he and his family settled in Mine Brook, New Jersey. This Alexander Kirkpatrick, the immigrant, is my seventh great-grandfather.

I will be sharing much more information on the Kirkpatrick family in future posts: the American Revolution, slavery, the American Civil War, how the family got land in Tennessee, and how my great-great-grandparents moved to Texas shortly after the Civil War. And how, via our Kirkpatrick ancestors in Scotland, the family connects to Robert the Bruce and the royal families of Scotland and England.

I wish my great-grandfather Louis Dillard Kirkpatrick could have lived to know so much about the family. He loved history with a passion!

My great-grandfather Louis Dillard Kirkpatrick, circa 1949.